When I arrived home from work today I was pleasantly surprised to find the premiere edition of Photosho in my mailbox. The magazine looks great and has an amazing selection of photographs from many talented photographers across Canada, including two of my Flickr friends Wayne Hiebert and Trevor Haldenby. I was fortunate enough to be chosen as one of the featured photographers and was given a two page spead to show some of the photographs from my Illuminated Watercolours and Industrial sets. I’m looking foward to sitting down with the magazine tonight and no doubt discovering some new Flickr contacts.
Archive for the 'Photography' CategoryPage 3 of 4
I’m happy to announce that Towering has been selected to appear in the juried exhibition Mass Culture and Society, Exhibit 2A at the McIntosh Gallery in London, Ontario from January 11 √¢‚Ǩ‚Äú February 25, 2007. The exhibition explores both the boundaries and intersection of photography with culture and society. This print is featured in the Built Environment category which focuses on our relationship with the Canadian urban landscape.
This is a big first for me - I rarely print my photos, and the ones I have printed can only be found in my living room - so it was fun to print an 11×14 and pick out a frame for it. This is also the first “proper” self-portrait I’ve ever taken that doesn’t involve me extending my arm out as far as I can. Tripods and self-timers sure are handy. ;)
Thanks to Garrett for letting me know about the exhibition.
I was excited to hear this morning that Flickr introduced geotagging functionality (especially since geotagging is something I have recently become interested in) and was eager to begin locating and tagging some of my pictures. My first choice was one of my most recent and personal favorites √¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Good Morning Machu Picchu. Not only is this the quintessential shot of the archeological site but it is one of the few photographs of mine where the location is actually recognizable and hasn√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t been abstracted away. I was able to locate Cuzco easily enough on the map, however, labels and landmarks of the surrounding area were few and far between. I dug out my Lonely Planet and between the guidebook maps and satellite imagery I was able to follow the river from Urubamba up towards the general area of Machu Picchu. I got lost in the many mountain valleys and was about to give up on pinpointing the location when I faintly saw the switchback-scared mountainside of Machu Picchu staring back at me. On the one hand I was relived to have found the exact location but on the other hand I was slightly disturbed at how we managed to scar the landscape in such a way that a bus route can be seen from a satellite. Machu Picchu is a fine example of building in harmony with the surrounding environment, yet this road seemed to be a glaring example of how modern society is completely out of sync. We can send satellites into orbit to take pictures of our landscape and landmarks, but we can√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t build a road that preserves the design integrity of an ancient site. Although I marvel at the ability to locate Machu Pichu on a satellite map, I just wish there was an easier and less obtrusive way to see the site, both from the ground and from above. The Incas designed their cities in the shapes of animals to be seen from above, but something tells me that this isn’t exactly what they had in mind. Machu Picchu was designed in the shape of a condor but now all that can be seen from above is a zig zagged bus route.
During a recent visit to Ottawa I was surprised to find the giant spider sculpture, Maman, outside of the National Gallery. Being an arachnophobe I wasn’t very pleased to see one of my greatest fears massively enlarged and cast in bronze. I was also a bit perplexed as to why a gargantuan sculpture of such a fear-inducing creature (albeit irrational fear in most cases) was doing outside a national cultural institution.
Maman, created by sculptor Louise Bourgeois, stands at an impressive 9.25m outside the main entrance of the gallery and carries a sac of 26 marble eggs in her belly. According to the National Gallery web site, √¢‚Ǩ≈ìthe soaring body and cage-like egg sac evoke a sense of security but also of entrapment, leading the viewer to question whether Maman is protector or predator”.
The image of a spider, regardless of size, always makes me uneasy, however, seeing this giant one stand before me brought back childhood nightmares of being attacked by giant spiders. Seeing this massive spider was literally like facing a living version of my greatest fear (albeit bronze cast one) which was both scary and reassuring at the same time. On the one hand, I was staring up at my greatest fear, yet on the other hand, since it wasn’t alive there was nothing it could do to harm me. As I became more comfortable with the sculpture I decided to get in a bit closer for some photographs. I slowly circled Maman, getting closer with each pass until finally I decide to go between two of the giant legs into the centre of the sculpture. As I arched backwards with my camera looking up towards the egg sack, I had visions of the eight legs suddenly snapping shut, engulfing me. But then something happened – the sense of foreboding turned into an overwhelming sense of security. I suddenly felt safe in the centre of this sculpture and instead of feeling threatened and claustrophobic I felt protected and liberated.
The transformation was a surprising one for me, but one which I doubt would surprise the artist or a therapist. For anyone with even a slight fear of spiders, a viewing of Maman can easily turn into your own personal graduated exposure therapy session. This type of therapy, also called systematic desensitization, is a form of behavioral therapy used to treat phobias where the subject attempts to remain calm while gradually being exposed to the feared object. A sculpture of a spider is far less threatening than seeing an actual one, even if the sculpture is massive, and by viewing the sculpture I was able to spend some time and sit with my fear, both literally and figuratively, in a non-threatening manner. Not only was I able to become comfortable looking at the object but I was even able to stand right under it, in what I perceived to be the most vulnerable position to be in, and no longer be afraid. Interestingly enough, if it wasn’t for my camera I probably wouldn’t have gotten nearly as close as I did and the idea to walk under the sculpture might never had occurred to me. But, with my camera in hand and the never-ending quest for a great picture fuelling me, I was far more willing and comfortable to step up, walk in, and face my fear and snap a few pictures of it as well.
Although I was initially skeptical of having Maman greet visitors to the National Gallery, I now feel as though she provides a fitting introduction to the gallery. This sculpture is an excellent example of the transformative and healing aspects of art and it is clear from my experience of her and the invocation of both security and fear that the artist set out what she accomplished to do. So, thank you Maman for helping me face my fear one step (and photograph) at a time.
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I decided to take a wee break from the Peru pictures and upload some pictures I took in Ottawa last week of ByWard market. Not only was the market a great place to shop and eat (Sweetgrass Bistro and Meditheo to name a few) but I had a great time taking pictures of the wonderful details of the charming buildings that make up the district. | |
| I also wanted to play around with Zooomr (a.k.a Flickr on Steriods) and its geotagging features and snag a free pro account by simply uploading one of the pictures (more info. for those who are interested). Although I’m still committed to Flickr, I was curious to play around with the extra features that Zooomr has to offer – in particular the geotagging and the ability to add sound to pictures. | ||
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit the historical and charming Quebec City with a friend. On a sunny yet extremely cold Sunday morning, we roamed the streets snapping pictures detailing the old architecture and quaint narrow streetscapes of Old Quebec. We stopped to warm up in a cafe and took turns looking at the pictures I’d taken on my cameras tiny LCD and my friend was surprised at how many pictures I had taken and the varying quality of each. Although he was pretty familiar my Flickr photostream, I realized that viewing these pictures freshly taken on the LCD was quite a different experience for him. Not only were there more pictures, many of them variations on the same theme, but some of them were a bit off - perhaps slightly slanted or in need of a tighter crop. I don’t do a lot of Photoshopping, but I do like to clean the pictures up a bit. My Photoshop philosophy is very similar to my make up philosophy - I’ll darken my eyelashes with a bit of mascara smooth out my complexion a bit of concealer but I don ‘t try to hide the fact that I have freckles or try to convince anyone that my lips are red instead of pink.
All of this got me thinking about the process of taking and sharing pictures. Clearly, the advent of digital photography has changed the way pictures are taken - I can assure you that I wouldn’t have taken 400+ photographs over three days if I was shooting film. I have more pictures of my weekend in Quebec City than I do of film photographs of my trips to Guatemala and Greece combined. Looking back to 2003 when I first started taking digital pictures while traveling Southeast Asia, I took a mere 344 pictures after spending a week at the highly photogenic Angkor Wat. Not only am I now taking more pictures, but I’m also sharing a lot more of them, thanks to great tools like Flickr. As I was browsing my archives, I couldn’t help but wonder what the relationship between pictures taken and pictures posted is and if this relationship changes over time. On the one hand, I like to think that the ratio decreases over time as presumably I’ll be taking better pictures. On the other hand, the more time I spend taking pictures, the more I want to take and the more I want to experiment. I decided to graph the ratio between pictures taken vs. pictures posted over the past six months to see if there were any patterns and came up with the following graph:
From the variation of the graph it looks as though some photo shoots turn out better than others. I also haven’t taken into account that some of those collections include photos for other projects not meant for my Flickr stream. On average though, I upload 19% of the pictures I take from a particular outing which pretty much matches the number that I had in mind before charting the data. I think that this number says a lot about my own creative process. Whether it is photographing or writing, I tent to start out with a sort of “stream of consciousness” approach to get it all out, then edit and revise numerous rough drafts until I feel that I’m happy with the outcome. I’d be interested to hear what other people’s number are - how does selecting and editing impact your own creative process, whether it is writing, painting, photography or any other creative pursuit?
On Friday February 24, 2006, Hamilton Artists Inc. presented Interactive Interactive an interactive multimedia show of McMaster and Sheridan multimedia student works. I was an entrant back in 2004 and was honoured to be a judge this time around. The student works were excellent and playing around with them on the Smart Boards was a lot of fun.
As someone who can often be found snapping pictures in public I was deeply disturbed to find out that photographers in Australia were met with police resistance while taking photographs of a gas storage cylinder of a Shell oil refinery. I could see the need for police involvement if the photographers had illegally trespassed on Shell property to take the photographs. However, I fail to see the harm or threat in photographing that which is in plain view. If I can stand on the street corner and see it why can’t I photograph it? The photographers and the club that they belong to have chosen to ignore the directive issued by the police and I applaud them for their resistance. Taking pictures of private property is one thing but when so-called private property is part of the public landscape photographers should be able to photograph it without fear of police persecution.
Interestingness is an attribute assigned to Flirck photographs based on the ever-illusive “interestingness” algorithm. No one is quite sure how it works, but having a photo make it to the Interestingness page is something that, at one point or another, most Flickrites have aspired to. Although there is much debate over the photos selected by the algorithm, an interestingness raking still seems to be a measure of success in the Flickr world - interestingness has become equated with famousness. Having read several posts of users fretting over their lack of interestingness status, I was please to come across a post with this quote by the graffiti artist Banksy:
The time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Any fame is a by-product of making something that means something. You don’t go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a shit.
I’ve always been weary of fame for the sake of fame. Although there are some who have succeeded in becoming famous by wanting to be famous, I wholeheartely agree with Banksy when he says that fame is the result of “making something that means something”. As an artist, I feel that it is my responsiblity to put my artwork out there and as mentioned in the previous post, I may agree or disagree by how it is recieved. In the end, it is up to the audience and not some algorthim to judge my work. An algorithm my be able to determine “interestingness” but only an audience of viewers can determine whether it means something or not.